The plane was forced to abandon take-off and evacuate its passengers. Photo / WFAA
A person was struck and killed by a plane during take-off on the runway of Denver International Airport.
The unidentified individual jumped the airport’s perimeter fence and was hit late on Friday evening (local time) by a Frontier Airlines plane departing for Los Angeles.
A fire broke out after the person was, according to ABC News, “partially consumed by one of the engines,” forcing the plane to be evacuated on the runway.
“We’re stopping on the runway ... We just hit somebody,” one of the pilots told the control tower around 11.20pm (local time), according to audio recordings obtained by CBS News.
“There was an individual walking across the runway,” the pilot said.
US Transport Secretary Sean Duffy described the individual as a “trespasser”.
They “deliberately scaled a perimeter fence, and ran out onto a runway,” he said in a statement on X, adding that the individual had been struck “during take-off at high speed”.
“The Frontier plane was then quickly evacuated while law enforcement and firefighters responded,” he said.
The 224 passengers and seven crew members disembarked via slides, before being bussed to the terminal building. Twelve suffered minor injuries and five were taken to hospital.
Denver International Airport said in a statement on Facebook that the person was hit two minutes after jumping the fence. They are “not believed to be an employee of the airport nor have they been identified”, it said.
The airport closed the runway following the incident so it could investigate. An inspection of the fence had found it to be “intact”. The runway reopened on Saturday morning (local time).
“We are extremely saddened by this incident and express our sympathies to those involved,” it added.
It is the second death at US airports in recent days. A 49-year-old Delta employee was killed at Orlando International Airport on Thursday after an aircraft-towing vehicle, known as a “tug”, collided with the jet bridge.
The airline said it was “working with local authorities as a full investigation gets underway to determine what occurred”.
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